How bad is this - How to fix stripped threads

[TomOfTarsus]

Like I said, late to the party, but I guess I'm also wondering why cover bolts have to be so long.

& yeah, Soundguy, I'll generally buy Grade 5 myself, more to assure a sound bolt than a strong bolt. QA issues on the lower-grade stuff. you know. Good idea also to make the measurements off of a known good bolt & hole.

 

[bp fick]

imo, and in my experience, the grade of the bolt is only as relevant as the quality of the metals and threads into which it is inserted. Having a $10 bolt run into 5 cent threads of poor quality metal, gets you what exactly? Just saying.

 

[Soundguy]

imo, and in my experience, the grade of the bolt is only as relevant as the quality of the metals and threads into which it is inserted. Having a $10 bolt run into 5 cent threads of poor quality metal, gets you what exactly? Just saying.

Actually.. there is way more to it than that.

If you are only looking at clamping power, and you have bad cast iron, and say, fine threads.. or small bolt diameter, then yes.. the bolt can be pulled striahgt up and out, however.. not all pulls are straight up and out.. side load a bolt and then put upward stress on it.. or uneven upward stress and a side load... a soft bolt can deform or shear. that side laod actually ADDS to the force needed to pull that bolt out of the casting.

While a grade 2 bolt may be a good match for cr@p iron castings.. it's head may cock to one side, shear off or otherwise deform actually adding to the problem, vs a gr5 bolt that's a lil harder. ( and a lil harder to drill out too.. )

I think the course of action to measure a known good bolt and hole is a good one.. who knows.. maybee they were m10 and already stripped, and have already been shodilly repaired by tapping 7/16 threads which were not deep due to the metal already removed, and then the wrong bolt slapped in on top of inadequate threads.

in the end.. some sort of OS on the hole will be needed.. either drill and tap for some sort of insert to get back to original or a standard size.. or simply OS with OS fasteners..or OS and plugged and redrilled standard.. heck... might be a good application for brazing,drilling,tapping... can't be -ANY- worse than what's there already..

soundguy

 

[ampa]

Metric bolts are normally marked with a M or mm. pretty well all or most machines/tractors/etc shipped over to us here in Canada are metric... I'm not too sure about the USA... as I think you guys are still usin' miles and gallons...before I bought a new tap and die set...I was retapping using my standard SAE/NF....but it gets a bit hectic when you forget what bolts you rethreaded to SAE/NF so this is why I have both metric sockets and standard in my tool box...saves alot of unessesary walkin'....Ampa

 

[Captinjack]

Well I was at my property over the weekend and I have a good report.

I removed two of the long corner bolts and was able to determine that they are 12 MM X 1.75 thread so I chased the stripped bolts and after removing the lock washers, (they didn't help before) put them back in. The hole where the bolts go was about 1/4" longer than the bolt so both bolts snugged up really well.

All the other bolts and four nuts on studs were loose as well and with a little effort, was able to tighten them up as well.

I see this as a short term fix, but since I couldn't find my loctite, I will have to remove them again and re-install later when I get another tube.

I'm such a dumb sh..t! When I first found the two loose bolts, I just tightened them up and didn't check the others holding the tank down. My problem just got worse because I was too much in a hurry to not do a complete check. I should have known. I thought I was looking at some kind of design defect that would plague me as long as I have the tractor. Now I know that the problem was ME. That won't happen again.

I'm going to review Rob's backhoe reinforcement and add some bracing before using the hoe again next spring. Did Brad do a feature on how he did his? Rob said that Brads is even better than his and tha's hard to believe.

I will also be buying new bolts that are 1/4" longer when I do the locktite.

Thanks all for your help. It appears my disaster wasn't as bad as I first thought. but I may be hallucinating again and Murphy's Law will rear his ugly head and bite me in the butt.

 

[Soundguy]

good luck.. that's still not a whole lotta thread holding them..

soundguy